1MSYNC(2) Linux Programmer's Manual MSYNC(2)
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6 msync - synchronize a file with a memory map
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9 #include <sys/mman.h>
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11 int msync(void *addr, size_t length, int flags);
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14 msync() flushes changes made to the in-core copy of a file that was
15 mapped into memory using mmap(2) back to the filesystem. Without use
16 of this call, there is no guarantee that changes are written back
17 before munmap(2) is called. To be more precise, the part of the file
18 that corresponds to the memory area starting at addr and having length
19 length is updated.
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21 The flags argument should specify exactly one of MS_ASYNC and MS_SYNC,
22 and may additionally include the MS_INVALIDATE bit. These bits have
23 the following meanings:
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25 MS_ASYNC
26 Specifies that an update be scheduled, but the call returns
27 immediately.
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29 MS_SYNC
30 Requests an update and waits for it to complete.
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32 MS_INVALIDATE
33 Asks to invalidate other mappings of the same file (so that they
34 can be updated with the fresh values just written).
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37 On success, zero is returned. On error, -1 is returned, and errno is
38 set appropriately.
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41 EBUSY MS_INVALIDATE was specified in flags, and a memory lock exists
42 for the specified address range.
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44 EINVAL addr is not a multiple of PAGESIZE; or any bit other than
45 MS_ASYNC | MS_INVALIDATE | MS_SYNC is set in flags; or both
46 MS_SYNC and MS_ASYNC are set in flags.
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48 ENOMEM The indicated memory (or part of it) was not mapped.
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51 POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008.
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53 This call was introduced in Linux 1.3.21, and then used EFAULT instead
54 of ENOMEM. In Linux 2.4.19, this was changed to the POSIX value
55 ENOMEM.
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58 On POSIX systems on which msync() is available, both
59 _POSIX_MAPPED_FILES and _POSIX_SYNCHRONIZED_IO are defined in
60 <unistd.h> to a value greater than 0. (See also sysconf(3).)
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63 According to POSIX, either MS_SYNC or MS_ASYNC must be specified in
64 flags, and indeed failure to include one of these flags will cause
65 msync() to fail on some systems. However, Linux permits a call to
66 msync() that specifies neither of these flags, with semantics that are
67 (currently) equivalent to specifying MS_ASYNC. (Since Linux 2.6.19,
68 MS_ASYNC is in fact a no-op, since the kernel properly tracks dirty
69 pages and flushes them to storage as necessary.) Notwithstanding the
70 Linux behavior, portable, future-proof applications should ensure that
71 they specify either MS_SYNC or MS_ASYNC in flags.
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74 mmap(2)
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76 B.O. Gallmeister, POSIX.4, O'Reilly, pp. 128–129 and 389–391.
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79 This page is part of release 5.04 of the Linux man-pages project. A
80 description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the
81 latest version of this page, can be found at
82 https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
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86Linux 2017-09-15 MSYNC(2)